Who really won the Republican Primary?

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By Kyle Barnett

When it was explained to you in grade school, it seemed easy enough. One vote per person; the one who gets the most votes wins. They called it democracy and told us that is why the United States is so great.

They called it democracy, and then we saw how it really worked in the 2000 presidential election, and how easy it was for a seemingly simple process to get caught up in political machinations.

Maybe that is when you realized there is a difference between democracy and representative democracy, and that in the U.S. at least, one vote does not truly mean one vote unless it has a sponsoring elector behind it.

Once again, we saw the marvels of representative democracy work their magic in the Louisiana Republican Presidential Primary.

Yes, this is the process Mike Huckabee called “goofy,” a criticism which could be viewed as an indictment from the Baptist minister who does not believe in negative campaigning. He did not quite call it satanic after all, but if you ask an outsider who does not happen to have to maintain the status quo of a guy who is running for president, you may get a little more than “goofy.”

“I think that Mike Huckabee would say that he got gypped out of it,” said LSU College Republican President Paul Dietzel II. “It is a democratic process. We did go out and vote, and the people that represent the party are voted in by the members of the public.”

Yes, the people did go out and vote, and the representatives of the Louisiana Republican Party were elected. 

It seems the “goofiness” Huckabee is referring to is the fact that there were two separate votes, only one of which counted, and the one that did not count happened to have more than 90 percent more voters participating.

The first vote was a caucus on January 29, where 80 percent of the voters decided not to vote for a candidate but for the pro-life cause; subsequently, this group went on to support McCain. According to Louisiana State Republican Party officials, only around 2 percent of the registered Republicans took part in the caucuses, since only 80 percent of those attending eventually supported McCain, he only ended up with over 8,000 votes. 

Then there was round two, the general primary.

According to Louisiana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne's official numbers, Huckabee won the voting with 69,594 votes, roughly 43 percent of the vote. John McCain was a close second at a 1 percent disadvantage with 67,551 votes. Also, on Dardenne's Web site the word ELECTED is posted in red letters next to Huckabee's name.

In fact, Hucakbee was elected with a plurality of the vote, meaning he got the most votes, but not the majority.

Under Louisiana Republican Convention rules, only the candidate who gets a majority of the votes in the general primary automatically receives the state’s delegates for the Republican National Convention, otherwise only the caucus results count no matter the discrepancy in the number of people voting, which in this case was about 160,000 votes in the general primary to around 12,000 in the caucuses. 

Thus Huckabee, despite getting the most votes cast in his favor, was not able to overcome the process and representative democracy triumphed again. Right?

You might think this voting system disenfranchises voters, but we will let the experts decide that.

“It is a system that puts a lot of control in the hands of the party and that seems pretty clear,” said Dr. Kathleen Bratton, professor of political science at LSU.

Republican National Convention Delegate and Louisiana State Republican Party President Paul Villere said the process was fair, and that the delegates are better able to make their decision on what is better for the state and nation.

“I feel like we had a fair process,” said Villere. “It is not a good or bad process; it is just our process. It makes the national candidates have to work in different situations.”

Villere defends the caucus plus popular vote system because it makes the process more challenging for candidates. He said Huckabee did not meet the challenge.

“I guess he [Huckabee] thought being a governor in a neighboring state was enough,” Villere said. “If he spent a little time maybe he would have gotten more.”

Here, once again the idea of representation is raised. The caucuses were held in 11 locations throughout the state, as opposed to the primaries which were held in all local precincts.

This calls into question transportation issues for those who had to travel to get to the closest caucus place to show their support. In some cases the drive could have been over an hour and a half.

The question of disenfranchisement of poor voters due to inadequate transportation was raised to delegate Ross Little, who said in response that it is up to the candidate to organize their supporters and get them to the polls.

And what about a candidate who has limited resources?

“He can make a decision where to put the efforts; he could have moved assets or money from Wisconsin or Illinois,” said Villere.

The fact McCain has spent nearly $40 million in comparison to Huckabee’s $7 million could have something to with do the results.

“The delegates have to go out and campaign,” said Little. “Much more grassroots participation.”

Grassroots? How surprising it is that the winner McCain has the most lobbyists of any candidate, meaning if anything, his support is less than spontaneous and by the people for the people.

In fact, according to a CBS news report released earlier this week McCain has taken to defending his reliance on special interest groups.

“The delegates should reflect the popular vote,” said Huckabee supporter Susie Labry. “If there is a possibility we could win. If I knew there was a one vote slight chance. If we knew there was no chance, I would be OK.”

There was still a chance for Huckabee to win, if only a slight one, but to say the will of populous is overlooked just by Louisiana Republicans would not fair.

There are many more primaries by both Republicans and Democrats in a variety of states that show that representative democracy is often less democracy and more representative of state party organizations who are indifferent as to how the popular vote reflects who gets the delegates.

The most remarkable instance, next to Louisiana, was earlier this year in the Nevada caucuses where the democratic delegate count also did not reflect the popular vote. Hillary Clinton won the majority vote with 51 percent that yielded 12 delegates whereas Barack Obama won 43 percent with 13 delegates.

Other contests seemed skewed as well. In New Hampshire 36 percent of the vote went to Obama, whereas 39 percent of the vote went to Clinton; both received nine delegates; in a close contest in Missouri, Clinton won 48 percent of the vote with 36 of the delegates and Obama won 49 percent with 36 also; in a similar vote in New Mexico, Clinton won 49 percent with 14 delegates, and Obama won 48 percent with 12 delegates.

In the other Republican contests, McCain won all 57 delegates in Florida with 36 percent of the popular vote; in Georgia, Huckabee won 51 delegates with 34 percent of the popular vote whereas McCain and Mitt Romney won 32 percent and 30 percent of the vote respectively with nine delegates apiece; in Missouri, McCain won all 58 delegates with 33 percent of the vote whereas Huckabee received 32 percent of the vote and won zero delegates; in Oklahoma, McCain won 32 delegates with 37 percent of the vote, whereas Huckabee won 32 percent of the vote with six delegates; in Tennessee, Huckabee won 25 delegates with 34 percent of the vote, and McCain won 19 delegates with 32 percent of the vote; in Virginia, McCain won 60 delegates with 50 percent of the vote, whereas Huckabee won 41 percent of the vote with zero delegates.

And the list will go on as the contests come up, and each state is allowed to set their own laws governing their electoral process, but as far as Louisiana is concerned, McCain is in, end of story.

The fact is, not long ago, primary elections did not even have a semblance of democracy, and candidates were elected by party insiders.

In fact, the parties have no legal requirement to give the public a chance to voice their support.

In any case, no matter what is said, 67,551 is never more than 69,954.

Here are a few last words by Roger Villere who, you are once again reminded, is the President of the Louisiana State Republican Party.

“It is a democratic process. We are a democratic republic. The United States is a representative republic. I think that McCain won. I think the results speak for themselves.”

Indeed, the results do speak for themselves.

Send your comments to editor@tigerweekly.com

Originally Published: Issue 599 - March 5, 2008

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